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SUTRA 5.
71 "अत्यंतसूक्ष्माः कर्मवर्गणाभ्योऽधो व्यणुकस्कंधपर्यन्ताः सूक्ष्मसूक्ष्मा इति।" i.e. the extrafine matter has been said to be composed of skandhas made up of one or two paramāņus and no more, and a paramüņu has been defined as :
जद्दव्वं अविभागी, तं परमाणु विआणाहि166 (The last particle of matter, which cannot be sub-divided any further by any means whatsoever, is a paramănu.) Also in Sutra 27 of Tativārtha-sutra (Ch. V) we have
ac :-(Sara Sto: Sreed) i.e., a paramānu is obtained by division of matter (to an infinite extent), not by union. Or from Tatıvärtha-rājavārtika (5.11)
ततोऽल्पपरिमाणाभावात्। i.e., there is nothing smaller than paramāņu. It follows that a paramāņu cannot be interpreted and should
e interpreted as the atom of modern chemistry although originally the word was invented by the Greek philosopher Democritus (420 B.C.) to denote something which could not be sub-divided. John Dalton, the great propounder of the Atomic Theory of matter, declared in the year 1808: “Thou knowest no man can split atom.” But since the atom of chemistry has now been proved to be a conglomeration of protons, neutrons and electrons, 1 venture to suggest that paramāņus are really these elementary particles which exist by themselves, or if at any future date the quark is discovered that should then be interpreted as the paramāņu of the Jainas. Neutron is composed of
166. Sarvurtha-siddni on sutra 5.25.
167. The extra-fine character of the neutrons is exhibited in the fact that they cannot be kept contined in a vessel of glass, metal or rubber. They slip through the walls of the vessel. Their velocity is about, 1,000 miles per second. They can penetrate a mile's thickness of air and several feet of lead, which even X-rays cannot. Their piercing power is so great that, according to one scientist, if a cannon ball could be made out of them it would pierce 75 million miles of steel plate. They have been found to be a powerful weapon in the artificial breaking of skandhas. Neutrons exist in the air we breath only one part in 160,000,000,000. Neutrons are produced when aluminium is bombarded by alpha particles from radio-active substances.
